That seems to be one of the premises of a curious pamphlet — education? propaganda? — produced by the National Center for State Courts for student use (David Kravets, “Nonprofit Distributes File Sharing Propaganda to 50,000 U.S. Students”, Threat Level/Wired.com, Aug. 21).
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In National Center for State Courts; RIAA and file sharing
Something is wrong with the world when you get a lesser punishment for holding up a cashier at a record/movie store and stealing their stock at gunpoint than for unauthorized copying for no profit.
Proof that RIAA is running scared. Rather than trying to find a way to profit from the new market place, they’re doing everything they can to try and scare people straight.
To paraphrase a movie: The tighter you squeeze your fist, the more people will slip through your fingers.
I think they owe Jack Chick some royalties.
Just because that’s the maximum possible sentence, doesn’t mean that a judge will give it. Even with the federal sentencing guidelines, I cannot imagine a US Attorney trying a case for someone stealing the pen in a Post Office. Further removed is a judge actually sentencing someone under 18 USC 1707 to a year for stealing the pen in the post office. A small fine is probably in order.
wow, that comic is so inaccurate, and i’m not even a lawyer.